COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The conversation started innocently, right before the group turned into the Hank Aaron exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Why,” I was asked, “didn’t you vote for Barry Bonds?”

The person, bright and well-educated, advanced the notion that so many players were using performance-enhancing drugs that it’s impossible to single out Bonds and Roger Clemens.

I respectfully disagree. Not everyone was cheating.

“I hope and pray that they continue to keep these guys out because it’s a black eye on the sport,” Hall of Famer Goose Gossage told me. “They don’t have to validate having these guys with an asterisk. This is the last paddle to their (backsides). They should keep them out.”

Baseball and PEDs, not HRs and RBIs, grabbed headlines again last week when ESPN reported that Tony Bosch, the owner of the shuttered anti-aging Biogenesis clinic, was cooperating with Major League Baseball in its investigation of drug use.

Bosch is a sleazeball who previously denied any involvement in providing PEDs to stars such as Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. Now, with legal bills mounting, and with MLB more than happy to cover his costs and request that the feds go lightly on this faux doctor, Bosch suddenly is a Chatty Cathy doll.

His words will mean little. He has the same credibility problem as Brian McNamee, Clemens’ disgraced personal trainer. But MLB will seek suspensions based on records Bosch can provide, such as text messages, checks, phone records and FedEx receipts.

As I wrote months ago, Braun is the new Bonds, public enemy No. 1 in baseball’s eyes after he won his appeal on a positive drug test last year, then dug his steal cleats into the collector’s neck with veiled accusations of rogue behavior.

Suspensions are weeks, if not months, away. Baseball will get the information from Bosch, build a case, then hand out punishment. The rulings will be fought by the players association, the appeals process further delaying any resolution.

It’s an indication of how much the culture has changed over the last decade that players aren’t ripping MLB officials or casting this as a witch hunt. Matt Holliday, the Cardinals’ all-star slugger, praised MLB’s effort to get the bottom of the scandal.

He said on MLB Radio: “I am totally against cheating, so I don’t think there’s any allegiance toward players that are cheating. If you’re doing something that’s on the banned substance list and it is helping you get an edge over guys that aren’t doing it, I think that’s crap.”

Cleansing baseball is a noble gesture, but unrealistic. Players will always cross the line. Those who cheat are taking money and jobs from others. It’s fundamentally wrong. What I’d like to see from this is a 100-game ban for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second.

And there’s something else that might work — forfeits. As it stands, a player has nothing to lose and money to gain by cheating. He runs the 24-hour news cycle, disappears without accountability and signs a new contract (looking at you, Bartolo Colon and Melky Cabrera).

I’d love to see teams forfeit five games if a participating player is suspended. Not unlike a college team surrendering games for an ineligible player. Creating more ownership from the clubs can only help curtail the problem and lead to more programs that can get to the root of the usage and those facilitating it.

The sport has been here before.

Baseball getting in bed with Bosch is no different than late commissioner Bart Giamatti writing a letter to a judge to go easy on a cocaine dealer who had helped bring down Pete Rose.

This investigation is personal for baseball. But they need answers, not a vendetta, or this cycle will continue to repeat itself like so many circular conversations in the hallways of Cooperstown.

Background: There was no Internet sensation video that was part Jane Fonda jazzercise and part Drago workout in “Rocky IV.” He left that to Cuban defector Orlando Cespedes. The Dodgers, looking to cast a wide net for international talent, launched the initiative last June, signing Puig, 21 at the time, to a seven-year, $42 million contract with a $12 million signing bonus. It seemed a bit outrageous for a player who had sat out of baseball the previous year and had only Cuban stats to project.

What’s up: Then he arrived at spring training in the Phoenix area and hit about .500 for a month, launching home runs that nearly landed in a nearby card shop down the road from Camelback Ranch. He made a strong case to stick, and would have if not for Andre Ethier’s unmovable contract. With Matt Kemp hurt, the Dodgers plucked Puig — pronounced Pweeg — after only 229 minor-league at-bats. What happened next was too much Splenda for even a Lifetime script. He homered three times in his first four games, including a grand slam Thursday that left him the team leader in curtain calls. His Bowman die- cut card shot up to $50.

Renck’s take: Puig — 6-foot-3, 215 pounds — is built like Troy Tulowitzki and plays with Manny Ramirez’s flair for the dramatic. He’s the perfect antidote for an underachieving, boring Dodgers team. The key question: Is this a slug of 5-hour Energy or a Mike Trout-like jolt to the Dodgers? Puig is not this good. No one is, save for Roy Hobbs. He’s more likely a .270 hitter with tremendous raw power. For any starburst— see Jason Heyward, Jeff Francoeur — keeping the glow is the hardest part. Puig quickly will get pitched to differently. He will struggle at times. But his personality and breathtaking tools are exactly what the Dodgers need to remain interesting, if not relevant.

THREE UP

1. Athletics: Nothing like a 17-3 run to remind the industry that the A’s are not going away gently into the night.

2. Twins: Joe Mauer is reaching base at a .404 clip, while the pitching staff is rebounding from an ugly funk.

Troy joined The Denver Post in 2002 as the Rockies' beat writer and became a Broncos beat writer in 2014 before assuming the lead role before the 2015 season. He is a past president of the local chapter of Baseball Writers Association of America and has won more than 20 local and national writing awards since graduating from the University of Colorado journalism school with honors in 1993.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tyreek Hill didn’t know what to do when he started hearing thousands of people in Arrowhead Stadium chanting his name, even as he stood all alone on the frozen turf waiting for the punt.